On the Mountain
by dogbertcarroll
Summary: Did you ever wish the earth would just open up and swallow you? A pair of ex-lovers finds the reality is quite different from the fantasy as they are forced together in a world they aren't sure they recognize. Breaking up may have been hard to do, but what's required to get them back together is a world apart.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: I do not own BtVS nor... (I can't just claim it's a secret, can I? I'll give it a shot.)  
**

 **Disclaimer: I own neither BtVS nor the... series I am crossing it over with, both are owned by their respective media companies.**

The bomb taken care of and the zombies dealt with, Xander left the Sunnydale high school boiler room with his head held high, foolishly assuming that the zombie behind him wouldn't just re-arm the bomb and leave, now that the way out was clear.

Of course, the point became moot thanks to a hungry werewolf who was locked up down there.

Xander was a bit banged up from the night's events, but for the moment he was feeling no pain. He'd saved his friends and gotten laid. The only way his day could improve would be if Cordelia agreed to bury the hatchet so he didn't have to listen to her rip on him and use things she'd learned in confidence against him.

As if summoned, Cordelia stepped out of the hall in front of him.

"Oh, it's you!" Cordelia spat out before starting a diatribe about how worthless Xander was and how he'd end up a drunken loser like his father.

"Good seeing you again too," Xander said, not in the least surprised, before turning and walking off.

"Don't you turn your back on me!" Cordelia yelled, rushing over to continue berating him.

Naturally, it was at this point that the earth opened up beneath them and swallowed them both.

Xander would describe the trip like being flushed down the toilet after you'd puked in it, but at the moment he was more concerned with the landing at the end.

A five foot drop doesn't sound like much, but a five foot drop onto asphalt when you're not expecting it can be a killer, even if you land feet first.

Recalling his dimly remembered jump school training, he quickly bent his knees and allowed himself to crumple to the side, bruising his shoulder but preventing any serious injuries.

"Fuck-fuck-FUCK!" Cordelia screamed, sprawled out on the ground and clutching her leg.

"You OK?" Xander asked, moving to help her.

"Don't touch me!"

Xander backed off, noting a lack of blood or serious malformation denoting a life-threatening injury. A quick check of himself showed he was OK, no breaks or bleeding, just some moderate bruising.

Taking stock of his surroundings, it looked like they'd been dropped on a two-lane highway somewhere in the mountains. Although there wasn't any snow on the ground, the air was a bit cold despite the sun being directly overhead, and there were pine trees along the road. And speaking of the road, it was cracked and worn like it hadn't been serviced in years. The slow creep of the forest was evident by the bushes pushing out into the roadway and the small plants growing up from the cracks in the road.

He figured they were in North America, probably the US, but somewhere deserted, probably for economic reasons like a mine closing.

Cordelia's complaints tapered off as Xander tried to make up his mind which way to go. Downhill would be easier and would eventually lead to civilization, while uphill was probably a shorter trip to some form of shelter, and though likely abandoned, it might have a phone.

His mind made up, Xander started walking.

"Wait! You can't just leave me lying here!" Cordelia screamed.

"Why not?" Xander asked. "You left me when I had a major concussion, internal bleeding, and cracked ribs."

"Your friends were there!" Cordelia shrilly retorted.

"Yeah, but they had to rush some girl to the hospital, so I had to make my own way until someone returned for me."

"That was an accident!"

Xander stopped and considered that for a moment. "Fine," he said with a sigh, "let's look at the leg."

The examination was quick and impersonal, much to Cordelia's surprise, though the only thing that kept her from complaining was the effort it took not to scream in pain.

"You may have pulled something and I can't tell if you've dislocated it until the swelling subsides and we get your pants off."

"You're not getting my pants off!" Cordelia growled.

"Can it, Chase," he replied, annoyed. "If you don't want my help, I'm not going to force it on you."

As he started to walk away once more, she panicked. "You're not going to just leave?!"

"No," Xander assured her, "I'm just looking around to see if I can find something to make a stretcher with."

"Oh." She quieted down.

Looking down the road, he saw something promising. "I'm going to head around the curve up here, I'll be right back."

"Hurry," she said quietly.

As Xander rounded the corner he froze and just stared. Part of the road was occupied by a mudslide and a downed tree, but that wasn't what had attracted his attention. There were half a dozen cars and a firetruck on the road and they weren't empty. Scattered bones on the ground marked where at least three bodies had lain and the grinning skeletons in two of the cars waited patiently for a journey they were never going to complete. He shook it off, and returned to searching.

The stretcher on the firetruck had rotted away, the cloth not being nearly as resistant to the elements as the nylon straps that held it in place. Fortunately, there was a thick plastic body board used to stabilize those with spinal injuries that had come through everything with just a little sun bleaching.

Xander tried not to look too closely while gathering what he needed. There was a sticker on the back window of the station wagon that showed a stick figure family with several small children and a dog. He did not look inside the car while taking a hiking stroller off the roof rack.

The material of the stroller was better than the stretcher, but still not as resistant as nylon. He used Jack O'Tool's knife to cut the crumbling fabric apart as he only needed part of the frame and the wheels. Xander's makeshift stretcher was lightweight and rolled easily over the road, so it took little time to return to where the dark-haired girl lay.

Cordelia looked at the contraption Xander wheeled up to her and then into his expressionless face. "I thought at most you'd bring back a couple of branches and use your shirt to make a stretcher."

"I could have done that here," Xander replied. "I was looking for other options."

He laid it flat, the board slightly raised due to the wheels strapped to it. "Can you climb on or do you need help?"

"I'm going to need help," she admitted.

Carefully rolling her over, they managed to get her on the board and Xander began strapping her down.

"What are you doing?" she screeched, slapping at his hands as he tried to secure her arms down.

Xander stopped and explained, "The straps distribute the pressure so it's not all on your legs, where the injury is."

"You're sure this isn't just an excuse-" she began only to have Xander cut her off.

"Listen, Chase, I have zero tolerance for your shit right now. If you don't want my help, fine, I'll leave, but if you want my help, stop making it harder than it needs to be!"

Cordelia fell silent and allowed Xander to finish strapping her down. In times of stress, she usually fell back to being a queen bitch and Xander cheating on her with Willow of all people had added whole new levels of anger and pain that brought out the harpy in her, but Xander was behaving really strange and she believed him when he said he would leave her here. It made her wonder if she'd ever really known him at all.

"Wh-what happened here?" the girl asked as they rounded the corner and she saw the cars…and the bones.

Xander found the wheels handled the dirt as easily as the asphalt when he carefully pushed Cordelia across the landslide just past the vehicles. "I don't know."

"What do you think?" she asked. "I mean, what have you noticed?"

Xander sighed and for a minute Cordelia thought he was going to remain silent. "The condition of the road, the bodies, and everything says it's been years since it happened. What it is, I have no idea, but the fact that no-one has come and cleaned up means either it's still going on, or it hit a very large area."

"Still going on?" Cordelia asked nervously.

"Think Chernobyl," Xander explained. "Even long after the accident the radiation remains, so they have to wait a couple of decades before cleaning up and burying the dead."

"And the second option?" she asked, as he detoured around a fallen tree that was blocking most of the road.

"It was so widespread that years later they still haven't gotten around to cleaning up this section," Xander replied.

"So the choices are either everyone's dead or we are radioactive?" she asked. "Please tell me some other options, I don't care how unlikely or even silly they are," she begged him.

"The portal we fell through dropped us onto the set of the latest post-apocalyptic film and everything we've seen is just set dressing for tomorrow's shoot."

"A little more realistic," she suggested.

"Someone pulled a Sleeping Beauty, but forgot the preservative part of the spell so everyone died in their sleep way before a prince could come, and by the way, the original version of the story had that as literal. Prince Charming does not wake her with a kiss."

"One, is that really more realistic, and two, eww!"

"I saw Buffy kill Hansel and Gretel recently," Xander replied. "That makes it really hard to dismiss any fairy tales as just stories anymore, and yeah, I agree, eww, but remember, it's not rape if you're royalty."

"I can see why Disney re-wrote it," Cordelia said.

"Yeah, it's not rape if you're rich just doesn't hold the same symbolism," Xander replied.

"Royalty was more than simply rich," Cordelia said. "They were well-bred and educated, while the peasants were dirty, smelly, and ignorant."

"They were that way because the nobles took nearly everything they had and what was left the church stole while telling them they were born evil and-" Xander fell silent as they crested the rise and saw a row of buildings, starting with a truck stop and ending with a motel as the road curved to the left and out of their direct line of sight.

They stared silently for a minute.

"I've seen some small animals and they looked healthy," Xander noted.

"Yeah?" Cordelia asked absently as she saw the scattered bones and overgrown vegetation. "What does that mean?"

"It means we probably don't have to worry about radiation," he told her.

"And the bad news?" she asked, hearing something in his voice.

"The cars are recent and the roads aren't deteriorated enough for more than a couple of years to have passed, so radiation isn't what killed everyone as the wildlife is looking pretty healthy."

"I thought that was a good thing," she said, as he slowly wheeled her forward.

"It means we don't have to worry about radiation, but that also means we don't know what we have to worry about," Xander replied.

"Oh," Cordelia said quietly, as they approached the truck stop and saw the scattered bones and vehicles.

"It's getting towards evening," Xander said. "We need a place to crash until morning, unfortunately all that's available are public access properties."

"What's that mean?"

"It means no private residences, so no threshold protections."

"You think there are vampires around here?" Cordelia asked nervously.

"No idea," Xander admitted, "but I'm a Sunnydale boy, I always assume vampires are about. Besides, threshold protections keep out a lot of things, not just vampires. We need weapons and shelter."

"You already have a plan," Cordelia guessed.

"Plan is a bit of a strong term for what I have," he replied as he eyed a couple of semis that probably had batteries as dead as their drivers.

"And it is?" she asked, wanting a distraction from the scattered bones and turning away from the sight of a child's shoe on the pavement before she could see anymore.

"Find an empty motel room, leave you in it while I scrounge for whatever food and weapons I can find before night falls, and wait until sunrise before we set foot out of the room again."

They passed a diner and a store selling skiing equipment across from a store that had cold weather gear on display. It was readily apparent that this little bump in the road was a pit stop on the way to a skiing lodge further up the mountain.

"A weather radio!" Cordelia suddenly announced as they approached the small motor lodge, a two story building with about thirty units.

"Would let us know if people were still around," Xander agreed. "There's probably one in the lobby."

"I-I think I'll wait out here," Cordelia said nervously, not wanting to see the corpses she assumed would be there.

"OK," Xander said, leaning her against the wall so she could see. "I'll be right back."

 **Typing by: Elrod Albino!**


	2. Chapter 2

Xander came out of the office with a room key, barely a minute after he'd entered. "Let's grab a room with a door you can lock before I start poking around, rather than leave you outside and strapped down.

"Oh, thank god," Cordelia said. "I was getting twitchy and it hasn't even been that long."

"Let's not tempt fate," Xander agreed, wheeling her around the side of the building and seeing the parking lot was nearly full. "Room 108 is open, it's a single, but better than nothing."

"All the other rooms are full?" Cordelia asked, just to have something to say.

"It was the only room that still had keys on the pegboard," Xander explained. "If it's occupied they had a spare set of keys. Guess we'll find out," Xander leaned her against the door to 110 while he unlocked 108. Looking inside he sighed with relief. "Empty," he told Cordelia wheeling her inside.

Cordelia looked at the room. It wasn't the Ritz but it would do. "It's… warm," Cordelia said in surprise.

"Yeah," Xander agreed, leaning her against the wall and closing and locking the door.

Cordelia tensed up at the sound of the deadbolt and really hoped Xander was the type of guy she'd thought he was, cheating aside, because there was no one around and she wasn't exactly able to fend him off at the moment.

"OK, let's unstrap you and move you to the bed," Xander told her, freeing her arms and leaning the makeshift stretcher against the nightstand. "I'll move your lower body first and you hold yourself up with your arms. This should minimize the jostling."

Cordelia braced herself with her arms. "Ready," she said nervously, waiting for the pain.

Xander unstrapped her legs and grabbing her belt and the bottom of her jeans quickly lifted and moved her over to the bed.

Cordelia groaned a little and grit her teeth as he grabbed her waist and completed the move almost overbalancing and falling on her, but catching himself on the bed. He stood up and moved the stretcher to the corner of the room. "Better?"

"Yeah, thanks," Cordelia said waiting for the throbbing to subside and relieved nothing else had happened. In fact she felt a little silly thinking about it now.

Out of reflex Xander hit the light switch and they both froze when the lights came on.

"We have power?" Cordelia asked in disbelief. "Quick try the TV!"

Xander walked over and turned on the TV, but nothing happened. He checked the plug and flicked it on and off a few times but nothing happened.

Cordelia reached over and turned on the lamp on the nightstand and it lit up. "Try this plug," she suggested.

"I'll put the TV on the nightstand," Xander said, moving the nightstand and pulling the plug on the lamp.

"Xander!" Cordelia said urgently.

"What's wrong?" he said looking around for what had alarmed her.

Cordelia simply pointed and Xander looked from the plug in his hand to the still lit lamp on the nightstand.

Xander picked up the lamp and shook it. "Feels like your average lamp. I don't think it has a rechargeable battery pack inside, though I may check for that later."

"Does this fit into any of your theories?" Cordelia asked.

"Not a one," Xander replied. "Do you want the lights on or off while I'm gone? They may attract something if I leave them on."

"On; I'm not waiting alone in the dark," Cordelia said firmly. "Except the lamp, you can turn that off."

Xander turned it off and it went dark. He turned it on and off a few times checking to see that it still worked without being plugged in. "I'll take it with me."

"Thanks, I appreciate that."

"I'm going to lock the door behind me," Xander said, before pausing and checking the closet, under the bed, and the bathroom.

"What are you doing?" Cordelia asked.

"Just occurred to me that before I locked you in a motel room, I'd better make sure there was nothing else in there," he replied. "Anyway, nothing's in here and I'll try and get back as soon as I can, OK?"

"OK," Cordelia agreed. "Keep an eye out for painkillers and bottled water while you're out, please."

"I will," he promised before walking out with the still lit lamp, locking the door behind him.

*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*

Cordelia looked around the room. It wasn't a bad room, though it was a tad dusty. It looked like the maids hadn't been here in a couple of weeks, or anyone else for that matter. It certainly beat laying on the road with an injured leg. Of course it'd also be better to be stranded with anyone but her ex-boyfriend who cheated on her with that backstabbing bitch Willow! Like Wesley for instance. A couple of weeks in a secluded resort, with that accent certainly wouldn't be turned down.

Of the list of people she'd least like to be trapped on a deserted island with, Xander was… about number five right now, if she was honest. The first two spots were taken by Willow and Harmony, number three was Snyder, and number four was… Cordelia sighed and enjoyed laying still and not being forced to move her injured leg.

OK, number four was a huge list of people who were useless in a crisis, which Xander wasn't, and she was pretty sure she wasn't heading up many of Xander's favorite lists at the moment herself. At least she was pretty sure she wasn't, considering the way he was acting.

Hopefully Giles and Wesley would figure out what happened before too long so she wasn't stuck here with him long enough for one of them to kill the other.

*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*

Xander frowned for a moment as he noticed the temperature outside. The motel room wasn't exactly warm, but it wasn't cold either and it should have been. It had been a comfortable temperature inside and the heater hadn't been on. He wasn't sure what was going on, they had lights and heating without power, the people were all dead, but there was no signs of what killed them, it was like they'd all just dropped dead at once with no warning.

Looking around he could see that there were lights on here and there, they just weren't obvious in the daylight. He walked slowly to the front, stopping at the soda machine that looked to be still on. Setting the lamp on the ground he looked behind the machine and saw where it was plugged in.

Giving in to temptation he pulled the plug and checked it. Yep, it was still on. Almost absently he fed in a couple of quarters and hit the button for a root beer.

 ***CLUNK!***

Xander picked up his grape soda and opened it. It was nice and cold as he took a sip. Picking up the lamp he continued to the front. None of this made any sense to him, hopefully there was a newspaper or a scrawled message in the lobby somewhere that would help.

 **Typing by: Bankrupt Samurai!**

 **AN: Yeah, I haven't really given out any clues that would identify what's going on. I like a good mystery every now and then.**


	3. Chapter 3

Cordelia groaned as she realized that Xander was going to be gone for a while and her bladder had just decided to let her know she had to pee. The pain in her leg said moving was a bad idea. Her bladder noted that it didn't care where she went and the bed was perfectly acceptable to it.

Cordelia decided right there and then that she didn't care if her leg was broken, she was not going to have Xander return and find she'd peed the bed!

She tried to stand, but her injured leg turned the pain dial up to eleven and she crumpled to the floor, biting back a scream. It took a minute for her to blink the tears from her eyes and get her breathing back under control. She silently blessed Xander for leaving the bathroom door open and the light on as she crawled toward the bathroom. She was going to use the bathroom and get back to bed if it killed her!

*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*

Xander peered around the lobby, trying to ignore the desiccated corpse that was curled up on the floor behind the counter. The lights worked, but the computer wouldn't turn on, and neither would the radio. The mini fridge under the counter was working, though the food in it was probably way past its expiration date. He thought about unplugging it and seeing if it was still running, but to do that he'd have to move the remains of the hotel clerk, and he didn't feel up to that yet.

Picking up an old newspaper that had blown off the counter he finally had a date; October 31st, 1990.

Xander looked around the lobby and frowned. It didn't look like it had been abandoned for nearly a decade, he was guessing it had been half that at most.

"Well, if the world hasn't ended, at least Cordelia has the winning lottery numbers for California from the mid to late ninety's memorized," he said with a chuckle.

He found a spare set of passkeys in a drawer and a fifth of whiskey and some Midol in the clerk's purse on the counter. He took that as a sign and decided he'd pressed his luck enough for now, as the sun was setting and he wanted to be behind a nice solid door when that happened. Stuffing the newspaper in the clerk's purse he stepped back outside into the waning daylight of the setting sun. He left the lamp inside so he'd have a hand free just in case, not that he had any weapons, not even a rock.

He used the passkey to open the supply room, just a few doors from where he left Cordelia. He grabbed one of the maid's carts and dumped half a dozen spare pillows and blankets along with down comforters into it. Looking around he found a hotplate and a tea kettle, which also went in the cart, as well as a number of gift baskets for VIP guests. Xander picked up another hotplate and turned it on, not bothering to plug it in, and nodded in satisfaction as it heated up. He'd almost forgotten to check and simply assuming they would work only to find out they didn't later would have been embarrassing.

The cart's wheels didn't squeak or wobble, which he found more unnerving than things working when they weren't plugged in. Opening the door to their room he froze at the sight of the empty bed. "Cordelia?" he called out anxiously.

"In here," Cordelia answered from the bathroom.

"Thank God," Xander muttered, as he pushed the cart into the room and closed the door behind him, throwing the deadbolt. "I thought you couldn't walk," he said, making himself a nest on the floor with the bedding from the cart, making sure not to look in the bathroom as Cordelia had left the door open.

"I crawled," she admitted. "I…I need help."

"With?" he asked cautiously.

"I can't…I can't get myself off the toilet," Cordelia said, and he could hear the tears and frustration in her voice.

"I'll be right there," he promised, grabbing the clerk's purse off the cart and turning toward the open door. He paused as he saw her on the toilet, positioned awkwardly with her legs outstretched and her pants and panties pushed down to her knees. The defeated expression on her face caused an almost physical pain in his chest, even while his libido was trying to get his attention.

"I don't suppose you found any morphine or Novocain while you were out?" she joked, trying to pretend she hadn't been crying.

"I have Midol and Jack Daniels," Xander told her.

Cordelia just stared at him in shock for a minute. "Oh thank God! That's just what the doctor ordered! Gimme!"

Xander passed her the purse and sat down on the edge of the tub and checked to see if the hot water still worked. He wasn't really surprised to find it did.

"You're planning on taking a bath?" Cordelia asked, setting the purse on the sink, but keeping the whiskey.

"A hot bath should relax the muscles and help take the swelling down," he explained.

"I'm going to need a lot of help," Cordelia warned him.

"Yes, but only for a day or two," he assured her. "I doubt it's broken, so once we get the swelling down, you should feel a lot better."

"Did you find out anything?" Cordelia asked, changing the subject.

"I found a newspaper that says it's October 1990 and I don't think this place has been dead for the better part of a decade, so we are probably back in time," he told her.

"At least it's not the eighties," Cordelia replied, taking another slug of Jack. "I am so not wearing that much hairspray ever again."

"Do you want bubble bath?" Xander asked, recalling one of the items in the VIP baskets.

"Yes, yes I do," Cordelia said firmly, after thinking a minute.

Xander retrieved the VIP bathroom basket from the cart and tore open the plastic wrapping, stuffing it in the trash. Aromatic bath oils and bubble bath were poured into the tub.

"Do you have chocolate?" Cordelia asked intently.

"Give me a second to check," Xander told her and started searching through the other baskets, but only found coco mix. Fortunately there was a half-full box of individually wrapped chocolate mints, so he took that and handed it to Cordelia.

"We're in a post-apocalyptic nightmare and you've managed to get me chocolate and a bubble bath in addition to Midol and whiskey," Cordelia said. "OK, you may see me naked."

Xander was about to explain how it was what they had to do, not a privilege he'd been shooting for, when he realized she was probably saving face. "That sounds reasonable," he replied.

 **AN: Typing by Elrod Albino!**


	4. Chapter 4

Cordelia took another slug of Jack Daniels. "I need help getting undressed."

"We'll start with your lower half since you're already halfway there," Xander said kneeling by her feet and slowly removing the laces from her shoes.

"What are you doing?" Cordelia asked.

"Removing shoes normally requires some pulling," he told her keeping his eyes on his work. "There will be a lot less pain if we unlace your shoes completely so they'll slip off."

"Thank you," she said as Xander gently removed her shoes and socks. She tried to ignore the little shiver that went through her as the kneeling man pulled off her panties. "Be a lot more fun if my leg didn't hurt and you could keep your dick out of redheads," she muttered.

"Yes it would," Xander agreed. "How does the leg feel now?"

"Much too real," Cordelia replied. "The rest of me feels much more comfortably numb. Can you keep your dick out of any redheads we meet?"

"I believe I can control myself for the moment," Xander promised helping her get her shirt off, a task made more difficult by her refusal to set down the Jack Daniels bottle.

"Good, now reach around and release the twins," she ordered, leaning forward.

Xander was almost straddling her so he could reach around and unhook her bra and slip it off.

"Ahh," Cordelia moaned in relief. Holding up her breasts with her left arm she ordered, "Scratch!"

Xander quickly scratched her sides and the undersides of her breasts. "Better?" he asked.

"Much," she replied.

He checked the tub and adjusted the water.

"Were her breasts better than mine?" Cordelia asked, breaking the silence.

"Different not better," he replied after a moment's thought.

"Tell me," she half asked, half ordered.

"Nipples were a lot pinker and they were probably more responsive, but definitely a couple of sizes smaller," he told her, shutting off the water in the tub.

"Was her ass better than mine?" Cordelia asked.

"Not remotely," Xander assured her.

"Was she tighter, smelled better, taste better, what?" Cordelia demanded.

"No, no, and a little bit sweeter because you drink diet soda, but it was never about the physical side of things, not really."

"Was she a better person than me?" Cordelia asked quietly.

"At one time, I'd have said yes, but after you started risking your life to help others that changed. You changed, so no; Willow is not a better person than you."

"And she has smaller breasts and her ass isn't half as nice!"

"Exactly," Xander agreed.

"So… why?"

"Because we were all we had for a damn long time, I have a hard time refusing her anything and…a shit ton of hormones," he said bluntly.

"Normally you'd play doctor and get it out of your system long before now," Cordelia said.

"Yeah, well…Willow never got the memo, so instead I learned how to preform emergency medical procedures as a preteen."

"Are you sorry you fucked her?" Cordelia asked bluntly.

"Sorry we got caught and that we didn't get enough practice for her teeth not to scrape," Xander replied honestly. "Do you want to try and stand with my help or should I just pick you up and set you in the tub?"

"Standing is not an option," Cordelia said seriously.

Xander picked her up bridal style and she hissed slightly as her leg was jostled setting her in the tub.

"Hot, hot, hot!" Cordelia groaned.

"Which will improve blood flow," he assured her.

"Distract me," Cordelia ordered.

"How?"

"I don't care, I just need a couple of minute's distraction while I get used to this," she groaned.

"Ok, I unplugged the soda machine outside and it still worked," Xander told her. "I also grabbed a hot plate and it also works without being plugged in."

"Did you get a soda?" she asked as she began to wash up.

"I got a grape soda," he admitted.

Cordelia grinned. "You pushed root beer didn't you?"

"Yeah," he admitted after a minute.

"Well at least we can get cold soda," she said, trying not to laugh.

"With the exception of root beer, unless I wheel you out there to push the button."

"Don't you even think it!"

"I'm not," Xander said, obviously lying for comedic value.

"Did Giles ever figure out why you always get grape soda when you push root beer?" she asked.

"He said it had something to do with chaos magic and was probably a mark of favor from Janus," Xander replied.

"The Halloween spell thing?" she asked.

"Janus the god of chaos and portals," Xander agreed. "Naturally his mark of favor upon my brow is to make it harder for me to get my favorite soda."

"Praise be to Janus for granting me minor vengeance upon you for favoring a taste other than my own," Cordelia intoned mock gravely, before finishing the bottle of Jack.

"Are you comparing you and Willow to soda?" Xander asked.

"Probably," Cordelia replied handing him the empty bottle. "My leg no longer feels like it's trying to kill me and I have a slight buzz going, so I'm not really paying attention, but just so you know, I'm grape!"

"Spend much longer in the bath and you'll be a raisin," he warned.

"Then help me out, doofus!"

Xander reached into the tub and pulled the plug to let the water drain, while Cordelia rinsed off the last of the bubbles.

"You have lousy aim."

"I didn't touch anything I wasn't supposed to," he defended himself.

"I need a two by four and a black marker," Cordelia muttered.

Drying her off and carrying her back to bed was a bit awkward as they tried not to jostle her injured leg, but they managed to get it done without causing her too much pain.

"My leg feels a lot better," Cordelia told him.

"We'll see if you say that tomorrow while you're dealing with a hangover," Xander told her.

"Get me something to drink with no caffeine and a couple more Midol and I won't have a hangover," she told him. "Hangovers are caused by dehydration."

"It'll have to be water for now," Xander told her.

"That's fine," she told him. "Xander?" she called out to him when he went to get her water and Midol.

"Yeah?"

"Thanks for being honest."

"No problem."

*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*

Xander woke up early, the nest of blankets and pillows surprisingly comfortable to sleep in, certainly more comfortable than his bed at home, which had lost most of its spring.

Digging through the stuff he'd brought in he found what he needed to wash up and shave, while he started the water heating for coco. It didn't take long at all for him to be ready to face the day, drinking a mug of coco, but Cordelia was still asleep and he didn't want to wake her or have her wake up and find him gone, so he'd need something to do indoors. A handful of tools and the spare hotplate he grabbed off the cart and he was in business. Prying it open he looked inside and just stared.

It was practically empty. All the electronics and wires were missing, even the cord that hung off it was cut short and didn't connect to anything. All that was inside was a couple of thin layers of stone with something carved in them. Xander turned the knob on the side watching as a set of symbols lined up with another set and felt it slowly heat up. He quickly turned it off and then back on a few times just to check.

As he carefully copied them down he realized what they were, they were some form of Nordic runes and as he copied down the last one the paper combusted so he quickly stuffed it in his half full mug of coco. "Don't speak Latin in front of the books, don't write out full lines of runes, check," Xander said shaking his head. "Well at least it's not aliens…probably."

 **Typing by: The Last Primarch!**


	5. Chapter 5

"Why do I smell smoke?" Cordelia asked as she woke up.

"I discovered a new way to make fire," Xander replied.

"Indoors?" Cordelia asked, coming awake.

"Using just a pen and paper," Xander agreed.

"Didn't you once set a book on fire by saying a few words in Latin?" she reminded him.

"A lot of my discoveries seem to involve fire," he agreed.

"I'm trying to think up a biting comment involving Buffy burning down the gym and your crush on her, but nothing is gelling at the moment."

"You just woke up, you can't expect quality quips before your morning coffee, or in this case, coco," he replied, heating up the kettle.

"Coco is just going to make me want to stay in bed," Cordelia noted with a yawn.

"How's the leg?" Xander asked.

"Feels good enough to…still require help getting to the bathroom and back," she said after she tested it.

"And compared to yesterday?"

"No comparison," she said with a sigh. "Yesterday I felt like I'd been in a car wreck, now it's more of a training sprain. Still, I'd like something stronger than Midol if you can find it, because this does not feel good."

"I'll make that a priority, along with something to read," he promised.

"Xander?" she asked while he made her a mug of coco.

"Yeah?"

"I…thank you, I know I'm not the easiest person to get along with and I'm still pissed at you, so I'll probably say a lot of horrible things while trying not to, because you fucked that red-headed…witch, but…I forgot where I was going with this. Please find me more alcohol so I can be thoughtful, rant, and cry while blaming it on the booze."

"Booze is probably safer than past due pain pills," Xander agreed. "Would you like some Midol?"

"Yes, but I can't take pills with hot liquids or I gag."

"I'm the same way," Xander told her. "Want me to get you a glass of water or a soda? I don't recall if they had diet Pepsi, though."

"I don't trust expired diet drinks anyway, just get me a regular soda with caffeine," she replied.

Xander handed her a mug of coco, and started getting dressed so he could go outside.

"So, how'd you end up setting a piece of paper on fire?" she asked as she sipped her coco and watched him dress, pretending not to look.

"I wanted to figure out how things were running without power," Xander explained. "So I grabbed an extra hot plate last night to take apart and this morning when I took it apart, all I found inside was a couple of stone disks, that line runes up when you turn them and when I wrote them down, the paper caught fire."

"Like a hand-written spell," Cordelia said.

"I actually know something about that. Giles tried to educate me on the difference between reality and Marvel comics, when it comes to the Norse pantheon. Odin sacrificed an eye to…the universe, I think, to gain wisdom and that's how he gained the knowledge of runes, which were considered magical and was taught to humanity, giving us a written language."

"And these are those runes?" Cordelia asked curiously.

"I think so," Xander answered. "There are some definite differences from the ones I'm used to, but it's possible the priests of Wotan kept them a secret using a… non-powered version for writing and taught it to the common man."

"And someone knew enough to use it to…what?" Cordelia asked, confused.

"To save on power bills?" Xander guessed. "They put plugs on things to hide it, but it's probably the reason we've still got light and heat."

"And if not for whatever happened, no-one would have ever known," Cordelia said.

"Yeah, I'm going to have to keep a journal detailing them, otherwise Giles would kill me when we return."

"Wouldn't it just catch fire?"

"Nah, my mistake was writing them all down on the same line…I'll have to use the runes I'm familiar with…I wonder if that's how they got lost."

"You mean the real runes weren't written down because they would activate, so the fake runes were used in their place, so when archeologists dug everything up, they only found the fake ones?" Cordelia asked, following his train of thought.

"Yeah," Xander agreed, as he laced up his shoes. "It makes sense. Be right back."

Cordelia sighed as the door closed behind him. Here they were, sharing a motel room and instead of being spooned up together in bed, naked, like she'd imagined, they were at odds with one another, and worried about surviving. "Any condoms we could find would probably be too deteriorated anyway," she muttered after a couple of minutes trying to think of something else.

"What?" Xander asked, not having caught more than the last few words as he came back through the door.

"Just thinking about how different things hold up over time," Cordelia quickly said, accepting a can of cola from him.

Xander nodded and retrieved the Midol from the bathroom. "Happily, I can get one of the cars running."

"Cars?" Cordelia asked, grateful for the sudden change of topic.

"Our choices are stay here and settle down as we wait for rescue, which may take more time than we have food available, or wait a reasonable amount of time and then search for a place with more food and supplies. Besides, just in case there's an emergency where we have to travel, I'd rather have an option beside walk or run."

"The road is blocked," she reminded him.

"It's only a bit of dirt and mud," Xander assured her. "As long as that's the worst section of road, we'll be fine with a truck or SUV."

"What if the entire world is this way?" she asked.

"Then we have plenty of canned goods and soda to see us through until Willow and Giles figure out a way to get us home."

"She can't give head correctly and you expect her to get us home?" Cordelia demanded.

"She's got the power, Giles has the knowledge," Xander replied. "And I doubt whatever voodoo they cook up will be adversely affected by her cock sucking skills." Xander wasn't exactly Willow's biggest fan at the moment and he knew Cordelia needed to vent, so he was having a real hard time not laughing.

"You find this funny?" Cordelia accused him in shock.

Xander burst out laughing and took a minute to recover. "Just picture Giles and her arguing about the correct pronunciation of vowels in a magical language before he sends her off to practice her 'oral skills' so she doesn't screw it up."

Cordelia snickered. "OK, that is funny."

"Plan for the worst, hope for the best," Xander said.

"Be careful out there," Cordelia told him. "I still can't walk and I don't want to be stuck here all alone."

"I'll be careful, and not Xander careful, but Cordelia careful," he promised.

"And no fucking any red-heads," she added.

"And no fucking any red-heads," he agreed.

 **Typing by: Elrod Albino!  
**


	6. Chapter 6

The morning air was clean and crisp, with a lingering chill that didn't often occur on the west coast. The birds were chirping and everything seemed to be right out of a travel brochure crafted by Norman Rockwell, until you took a closer look and saw how empty everything was and spotted the scattered bones lying about like discarded candy wrappers.

It reminded him of Sunnydale, providing a strange sort of comfort. As he thought about it, he realized he'd have felt even more out of place if there hadn't been bones scattered about and death lurking in the shadows.

"My life is seriously fucked up," he noted, unable to stop himself from laughing at the absurdity of the situation. Finding humor in the oddest places had always kept his spirits up. Plus, he could almost smell the pheromones wafting off Cordelia, a legacy of the primal empowerment, that raised his spirits a little too much in his opinion.

He tried to ignore the part of him that was whispering about what Cordelia wanted because he remembered what had happened with Buffy, where her pheromones practically screamed sex while she denied it. It was probably connected to how danger and battle turned slayers on. All he knew was that it was best to wait for a clear sign with no ambiguity what-so-ever, rather than risk making that mistake with anyone.

Out of habit, he glanced both ways while crossing the street. The drug store's sign read 'open' as it had for the past... however many years, and a cautious sniff when he opened the door revealed nothing more than the faded scent of pine scented cleaner and air fresheners that haunted such places.

The store was warm compared to outside and the lights were still on, reminding him to take apart the lamp and copy down the runes powering it.

He couldn't stop himself from peeking behind the front counter and seeing the body of the cashier... It looked mummified. He hadn't thought about it before, but now that he was taking a closer look he couldn't help but notice that - except for the bodies exposed to the elements - they all looked mummified.

The Halloween decorations still hanging in the store seemed remarkably appropriate.

He collected a copy of each magazine off the magazine rack and a couple of paperback books before checking out the rest of the store. Not trusting expired drugs beyond aspirin, he snagged a good-sized bottle of Jack Daniels and seriously raided the candy section. He was pretty sure candy didn't go bad for at least a decade and it would keep them from going hungry while he searched for something more filling. Grabbing a hand basket for everything, he also raided the toiletries for the full-sized versions of their normal bathroom supplies and grabbed a couple of boxes of condoms out of habit.

Stepping outside, he breathed a sigh of relief. He hadn't realized it at the time, but he'd been expecting something to happen; there seemed to be a tension to the air inside... or maybe it was just him.

Returning to their motel room, he saw Cordelia sprawled out on the bed: naked and bored. She didn't try to cover herself and smiled as she saw him, making him admit to himself that he probably wasn't wrong about what she wanted.

"Bare chested werewolf?" she asked on spotting the title of one of the books.

"Supernatural romance novels seem to be the preferred genre of our local drug store," he replied.

"I see Jack, but no Coke," she commented.

"I'll hit the soda machine and see if the ice machine is still working," he promised. "But promise me you'll go easy on the stuff."

She rolled her eyes. "You've seen me drink before. I didn't have a problem with it and I plan on being solidly buzzed for at least forty eight hours unless you need me for something."

"I'll just be looking around for clues and canned goods," he replied. "But when you drink..."

"I know how I get when I drink," she assured him. "I don't have a problem with it. Do you?"

"Nope," he replied instantly, knowing any other answer would probably get him hurt.

"Good," she said, relaxing a little. "I'm making sober decisions here. Now bring me my drink that I may drown some pain."

"Yes, ma'am," he said, amused.

Xander spent the next couple of hours checking the various motel rooms for keys and matching them to cars in the parking lot. To his surprise, he found several older vehicles that started right up, even if they ran a little rough at first. The newer vehicles were a wash, as they either had dead batteries or made strange noises and died.

Satisfied they had several ways out if need be, he started searching for something more than candy to eat. Not knowing the actual date made it difficult to know what food to trust, so in the end he gathered a box filled with canned goods and chips. Sure, the chips would be stale, but stale chips never made anyone sick. He also grabbed a jar of honey as he dimly recalled that honey never spoiled.

It was still pretty early when he called it a day, but all their immediate needs were taken care of and he didn't want to leave Cordelia alone for too long.

OK, he might also have been a little distracted by what Cordelia had all but stated she wanted and expected when he returned. Maybe it was shallow of him, but he was thinking that if he was being invited back into her bed, he might be being invited back into her heart as well.

"Xander," Cordelia said when he entered their room, "would you mind dropping your pants and getting over here?"

 **Typing by: Ordieth**


End file.
